OK. My friend on his tumblr has some harsh words for Creationist and religion in general.

http://bibliosk8er.tumblr.com/post/80267478201/now-fight-like-apes


Anyway it got my mind going and this is my riff of a reply since tumblr restricts how long a comment can be, so here goes. It is all off the top of my head so it is obviously not really thought out.

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“Smart religious people don’t put so much stock in myths like this. They find ways to still believe their religion while not ignoring science. Most, I think, compartmentalize the two competing world views, which I find a bit psychotic at best and intellectually weak and dishonest at worst.  The ones who are both smart and honest discard their religion, or become deists or something similarly vague.”

It seems to me that your argument really means that a smart religions person an oxymoron. No? And from that I deduce there is a problem in definitions, how do you define religion and smart?

I'll set aside the smart thing because...well I ain't so smart. SOoooo...My current improvisation is that religion is not a thing but a force that is is an integral part of the human Psyche. Of course if you are a total empiricist, the human psyche is as much a phantom as religion and is another stupid human vanity. But if we accept it then the thought experiment progresses.

I posit that Religion is something important to humans and no matter what, it comes out in some form. For instance I once read that the “Beat” experience of the the 1950's was not a literary or philosophical expression but a religious one. And the same could be said of the Punk world. Both were an attempt to access life at its core. Not a concept or even an idea, but the experience life itself. Pure living.

I once heard someone say the “enlightenment was like falling in love” . The point is almost everybody has experienced falling in love, and it is something that defies logic. So if you only accept logic you deny love, religion and ultimately anything not measurable.

The deal is there are not two opposing world views, there are thousands of different world views from wildly different people trying to figure things out.

So is life more than simple calories and creature comforts? Are all metaphors for living, “just” metaphors? Are things like poetry and literature actually humans taking a stab at understanding themselves and others, or just an entertainment?

I saw the HPO show “Questioning Darwin ” and I like that one scholar said if Darwin met some creationists he would not rail at them but talk to them and try to understand. I see that as the real point. Not rating who is smart and dumb but understanding why they think that way and what they get out of it. AND perhaps are we falling into the same patterns?

But that is just an offhand riff I came up with after reading your tumblr.

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I think this comes back to my  Grand Theory of Everything, so I didn't want to drop it.

Ref#...I forget